Warning: mktime() [function.mktime]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /home/owatch/www/www.olbermannwatch.com/docs/countdown.php on line 5KO's new contract with MSNBC ends in...0 days 0 hours 0 minutes

GONZALES-GATE: Jonathan Turley, George Washington University law professor and constitutional law expert

SANJAYA SURVIVES: Maria Milito, Q104.3 radio host

A typical opening spiel from the infamous, deplorable one: Bush is trying to "sneak" a nominee through, and it "may be illegal". Why is the GOP behind the Dems in money? Gonzales "praciticing" tesimony; Pelosi is doing what Hastert did; Sanjaya and American Idol; and even more about Keith Richards. Pretty blah lineup, nothing that will compare with our special Olbermann's Masculinity edition of Dogs That Did Not Bark.

UPDATE (RCox): Video & Transcript

#5: Because Bush made a recess appointment of an ambassador, that means he is not "sincere" in dealing with Congress over Iraq funding. And he's a "swift-boat fundraiser", no less. He is? He raised money for the swift boat campaign? Edward R Olbermann did not source this claim, but we're sure there's a blue blog somewhere, out where the busses don't run, that says it. What's more, Kerry (D) claims the appointment is illegal, Dodd (D) is against it and... Well, there is no "and". If you expected any quotes from people on the other side of the issue, then you are new to OlbyPlanet.

Lefty Alter was asked if "Mister" Bush never cared about Congress in the first place, and he shot back that a recess appointment is "the ultimate thumb in the eye of the opposition" and asserted that it isn't done very often. Olby's sock-puppet did note that such appointments are not illegal, but then claimed Bill Clinton made recess appointments "on a very rare occasion". There were 140 rare occasions. Lefty gushed over the "oversight" by Congress, and of course Olby Great Thanksed him.

Plus: the Pentagon is tapping into the National Guard again. And Gonzales is cramming for his Senate testimony. That brings us to tonight's episode of Olby and the Perfessor. Edward R Olbermann said Gonzo is either "rewriting the truth" or has to study up on what he should already know, so it can't bode well for him (Rule #1). The Perfessor said "everything" Gonzo said is contradicted by his own aids, and he may have lied under oath. Unless he didn't. Monica Goodling taking the fifth before Congress is "incompatible" with her status. We should count ourselves lucky. At least tonight Krazy Keith didn't suggest asserting a constitutional right is not legal. Oh, and he didn't call Gonzales a houseboy. Good Olby. The Perfessor was Great Thanksed.

#4: Dems have more money than Republicans. Nyah, Nyah, Nyah! Besides, Romney got his money from those Mormon people. Oooooh, that's scaaaaaary! Maddow was there to send OlbySpin into hyperdrive: it's all Bush's fault. Oh, and Cheney too. The two of them got almost orgasmic over Dems and libs raising money. The decibel level kept rising; they spoke faster and faster. Finally the discussion climaxed with a Great thanks (for this relief).

#3: It's GOP hypocrisy! The "right wing" criticizes Pelosi for going to Syria, but didn't criticize Repubs who did the same. Um, might that be because the Repubs didn't nearly cause an international incident due to incompetent bungling? Ya think? Doesn't that matter to the story? Hard to say, since Olby never mentioned that part of it. Wendy Sherman, a crony of Madeline Albright, was the "expert" who talked a lot but said only what Olbermann wanted to hear. His patented leading questions (Didn't Denny Hastert do it too?) helped steer the conversation away from the central fact that under the law, the executive branch is the sole organ of foreign policy. Sherman gloated how Blair's "quiet diplomacy" freed the hostages. Say what? According to Fat Ass, they were freed because the U.S. "blinked"! Oh, and Wendy never mentioned Pelosi's embararssing blunder either. The echo chamber on OlbyPlanet stays pure. Great thanks.

After a commercial break, which bizarrely included an ad for Countdown itself, we got #2: a hoax advertisement (regurgitated video), Keith Richards, Billy Packer. #1: Another segment trading on the success of American Idol.

The Media Matters Minute showed again how fleeting acceptance is on OlbyPlanet. Take the case of Mike Allen, honored Countdown guest on more than one occasion:

But Allen left Time and now works for Politico, and Politico is being linked to by the eeevil Matt Drudge (Blue Blog Source: Media Matters). And as if that weren't enough, Allen has committed the unpardonable sin: he's criticized Democrats (Blue Blog Source: Media Matters). Result: Mike Allen, you're a "worst person"! (Along with the more traditional choices of Glenn Beck and Cheney.)

Dogs That Did Not Bark: Special Olbermann Masculinity EditionFor those who may have tuned in late, we will explain the premise. Back in November of last year Olbermahn blasted Bill O'Reilly for not speaking out against the OJ Simpson book and the proposed Fox tv show. An Olbermann Lie to be sure (O'Reilly was leading the charge against it) but no matter. Olby declaimed that even if something were on NBC, he would be "just as vociferous" in speaking out as he is regarding people on other channels. He pontificated that if you cannot be critical of "your own network", then you have no "manhood". Oddly, since making that statement, we don't recall one single example of Edward R Olbermann speaking out, vociferously or otherwise, about any of the commentators or reporters on NBC.

So, flashback to March 31, 2006, when Oralmann took aim at Neil Boortz, whose crime was making fun of Cynthia McKinney's appearance, specifically her "Brillo pad" hairdo. Based on that, Monkeymann declared Boortz to be a racist. Fine. Now give a listen to what one of A-Mess-NBC's top-rated program hosts said yesterday. Have we heard one word from Olbermoronn? How's your masculinity now, Keith? What, you want more? Just yesterday Herr Olbermann attacked John Derbyshire of National Review; he criticized the the British sailors/hostages for being spineless. What do you suppose happened this morning? Listen to A-Mess-NBC's own military expert, Col Jack Jacobs, on Peacock air [mp3]:

Not one peep out of "Man on Fan" Olbermann, vociferous or otherwise. Silence. By Keith's own standards, the Olbermann Manhood Quotient remains: [limp].

Olbermann's book The book that bears Olbermann's name has soared to a stunning #23,136 at amazon.com, while "Culture Warrior" is #220. (It's that 2-for-$25 sale!) The OlbyTome is #3,753 at Barnes & Noble; O'Reilly's book is #214 there, and is one of the top five books of 2006 per Publishers Weekly. The Wednesday ratings have not been published, but take it from us: "Man on Fan" Olbermann lost overwhelmingly, both in total viewers and in the critical, beloved, all-important, coveted "key demo". Tonight's MisterMeter reading: 4 [ELEVATED]

George Bush belongs in Federal Prison and his supporters belong in mental homes. Here is to hoping that Sam Bell dies a lingering painful death,,, one that takes 8 years to kill him.. Lou Gehrig's disease would be nice for him. When will this f---ing pile of sh-t president run out of lackies to give jobs to ? The day that Bush dies will be declared a national holiday.. It will make VJ day look somber. Hope it happens soon.

Oh, there's that caring, inclusive, peace-loving and oh-so tolerant liberal world view. You're a breath of fresh air, O'Lielly. You really know how to brighten the place up with your left-wing spirit of understanding.

And the latest from Loonland? They think that NBC News is about to make Olby their new weekend anchor for Nightly News. In case they hadn't noticed, they haven't even let Olbermann give his promised "editorals" as part of his new contract deal. Do these loons really think that NBC wants him stinking up their airwaves on the mothership?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Syria Wednesday – in which she called for dialogue with Damascus – was “brave” and “very appreciated” and could bring about “important changes” to America’s foreign policy, including talks with “Middle East resistance groups,” according to members of Palestinian terror organizations whose top leaders live in Syria.

“Nancy Pelosi understands the area (Middle East) well, more than Bush and Dr. (Condoleezza) Rice,” said Al-Batch, speaking to WND from Gaza. “If the Democrats want to make negotiations with Syria, Hamas, and Hizbullah, this means the Democratic Party understands well what happens in this area and I think Pelosi will succeed. ... I hope she wins the next elections.” ...

Ramadan Shallah, overall chief of Islamic Jihad, lives in Syria, as does Hamas chieftain Khaled Mashaal. Israel has accused the Syrian-based Hamas and Islamic Jihad leadership of ordering militants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to carry out terror attacks.

Al-Batch expressed hope Pelosi and the Democratic Party will pressure Bush to create dialogue with Syria and Middle East “resistance movements” and prompt an American withdrawal from Iraq.

“Bush and Dr. Rice made so many mistakes in the Middle East. Just look at Palestinian clashes and Iraq. But I think some changes are happening for the Bush administration’s foreign policy because of the hand of Nancy Pelosi. I think the Democratic Party can do things the best. ... Pelosi is going down a good road by this policy of dialogue,” he said.

Abu Abdullah, a leader of Hamas’ military wing in the Gaza Strip, said the willingness by some lawmakers to talk with Syria “is proof of the importance of the resistance against the US. ”The Americans know and understand they are losing in Iraq and the Middle East and that their only chance to survive is to reduce hostilities with Arab countries and with Islam. Islam is the new giant of the world,“ he said.

”Pelosi’s visit to Syria was very brave. She is a brave woman,“ Jihad Jaara, a senior member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group and the infamous leader of the 2002 siege of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, told WND.

”I think it’s very nice and I think it’s much better when you sit face to face and talk to (Syrian President Bashar) Assad. It’s a very good idea. I think she is brave and hope all the people will support her. All the American people must make peace with Syria and Iran and with Hamas. Why not?" Jaara said.

Keith was absolutely outstanding tonight as always, poking holes in the sinking republican ship. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK, KEITH. WE NEED 20 MORE JUST LIKE YOU! YOU REALLY GET UNDER THE SKIN OF THE Bush Supporters.

A Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives has held talks in Syria - one day after the Democratic leader in that chamber sparked controversy by visiting Damascus.

Congressman Darrell Issa of California met in the Syrian capital Thursday with President Bashar al-Assad and Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem. Issa is of Lebanese descent, and is a member of President Bush's Republican Party.

Issa told reporters that members of Congress will continue to urge the Bush administration to hold a dialogue with Syria.

The White House sharply criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Syria Wednesday, saying the California Democrat was undercutting efforts to isolate Damascus.

White House spokesman, Gordon Johndroe said Thursday that the administration does not think it is productive or useful for members of Congress of either party to hold talks with Syria.

Pelosi is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Syria in years. She said she carried a message from Israel that it is ready for peace talks with Syria, and that it is important to hold a dialogue with Damascus.

However, Israeli Cabinet minister Zeev Boim says if President Assad really wants peace with Israel, he needs to take actions to prove his intentions.

After her visit to Damascus, Pelosi traveled to Saudi Arabia for talks with officials there.

Pelosi and Saudi King Abdullah discussed the situation in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. She also met with members of the kingdom's advisory Shura Council.

George Bush belongs in Federal Prison and his supporters belong in mental homes. Here is to hoping that Sam Bell dies a lingering painful death,,, one that takes 8 years to kill him.. Lou Gehrig's disease would be nice for him. When will this f---ing pile of sh-t president run out of lackies to give jobs to ? The day that Bush dies will be declared a national holiday.. It will make VJ day look somber. Hope it happens soon.

Posted by: Bill O'lielly at April 5, 2007 10:18 PM
So much for the "we're not like that" as quoted from a certain whacko lib who claims to be a speaker of all.

Yea well, Janet, you seem to be having trouble grasping most of today's realities.

Posted by: Mike at April 5, 2007 11:06 PM
Tough guy, she's not a coward. She doesn't make comments she can't back. She doesn't run from a debate and make childish excuses. She has debunked you so many times, it's kinda sad and funny at the same time. Mostly funny, though..

Everyone else on this board knows it though...and most are simply enjoying watching you make a total ass out of yourself day after day after day after night after night.....

By the way, how many anon posts did you accuse me of making today? I can't even keep up with them all.

Posted by: Mike at April 6, 2007 1:09 AM
Don't you get tired of saying the same ole stupid, idiotic crap? Mr. No Facts to back up his big mouth? Bla, Bla, Bla, Bla. Who are these "everybody's?" Anons don't count, so you better come up with some really good names.

Sorry for the day old news but, this fascinating. A person who posted here who said he use to listen to Limbaugh until he became a drug addict. Has now ditched everything on the right for people on the left who have been in re-hab multiple times for Oxy-Cotin, but still endorsed by their state party.

They will completely dismiss a one time drug addict for being a one time drug addict.
But will totally embrace a party that has a two time drug addict.( That gets rides home from the Capitol Police) And will totally believe a guy that walks into Subway polls?

In my life, I've never seen in all the times I use to go to the City, somebody walk into a Subway Pole. Surely with all the times I use to go to Yankee games I would see some drunk walk into a Subway Pole, but no!

But somebody would rather take up with a party that has a Congressman from Rhode Island that is on the "Anna Nicole Smith Drug Starter Program'. And a guy who walks into Subway Poles!

On my worst drunkin' stumblin' night coming out of 'The Palladium' I still managed to make it down 14th street to the Subway, get on the right train, and not walk into a Subway Pole.

Olby, walked into a Subway Pole, straight!!
And people believe this guy?

Fascinating!!!! Absolutely Fascinating!!!!!!

One time Oxy Cotin abuser, went to re-hab and, so far so good. They don't believe him!!! Screw him!

Two, maybe three time Oxy Cotin abuser and let's not forget drinking problem. At least two time re-hab attendee. No problem with him or his party, they endorse that sort of stuff.

A guy who walks into Subway Poles? They take his word as "The Whole Truth"!!!

Keef is the Sanjaya(from American Idol) of television news. Like Sanjaya, Keef is kept aloft by his cadre of supporters who don't know the meaning of the word 'qualified'. Edward R. Murrow would crawl back into his box if he were to catch a glimpse of this dolt who thinks he is of the same calibre. Ok, all the 12 year olds call in and vote for Keef..er..Sanjaya.

"At a late-February press briefing, White House spokesman Tony Snow was asked about reports that two Army brigades were being sent to Iraq without any desert training. His reply was widely quoted at the time: "Well, but, they can get desert training elsewhere, like in Iraq." "

"Like Sanjaya, Keef is kept aloft by his cadre of supporters who don't know the meaning of the word 'qualified'."

This is hillarious coming from a Bush-supporter.

Posted by: Sir Loin of Beef at April 6, 2007 8:39 AM

What a silly response, Sir Loin of Milquetoast......

George Bush as legitimacy from being elected to office by the largest number of people anyone has ever received in a presidential election....and he will have this status until 1/09 unless your representatives get on the ball and move to impeach him/remove him from office.....Under the constitution he has the SAME power he had before the election in 2006 and he continues to use it, undaunted by your opinion, comments or jokes.

It seems millions determined Bush and his administration were very qualified in 2004 to choose them for 4 more years over the Democratic candidate....And golly gee, the Congress is so closely divided that President Bush will be able to veto anthing he wants and not worry about being over-ridden. I think this means he has a lot more than just a small cadre of supporters keeping him afloat.....don't you agree Loin?

On the other hand, your hero, Keith Olbermann, lives and dies by the numbers of silly robots who watch his show week to week.....And it is increasingly evident he will do ANYTHING to please this looney group. Your comparison is so illogical that it makes you look foolish.....I expect soooo much more from you!

To all Lefties and Righties,
Why not name the war on Terror what it is.
The War on Islamo-FAscism.
Why not name your enemy?
I can't understand the Republicans and Democrats.
Maybe all that Oil money has neutered our leaders!

The idiot Cee thinks Bush is "qualified".
Bush has lowered the standards for every president after him.
Whenever a candidate in the future is labeled." not qualified to be president, you can couter that argument with the words" George Bush" !
His incompetency is now legendary,The list is a mile long, yet continues to be ignored by the wingnuts.
Plus this man has two distinguishable characteristics.
Not letting law impede his decisions and a plain inability of not being able to tell the truth.
This president has lost all credibility with the American people, and sheep like Cee continue to play blind man's bluff.

"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."
---Sinclair Lewis

"Substitute your lies for fact."
---Pete Townsend

Biblical prophesy, taken literally, is sheer madness.

Until you substitute the word "human" for "God."

Then, like a dime store puzzle everything becomes clear and human nature is revealed in all its utterly predictable, lowly splendor and suddenly every noxious, divisive screed written by religious zealots and political bigots makes perfect sense when brought down to ground level.
The real anti-Christs are anti-humanitarians who, while fostering a culture of godliness, are really extolling the death of compassion and sensibility; the false prophets are those that come wrapped in fiery jeremiads and promises of a winged after-life in paradise and warning of the arrival of entities that---curiously---resemble only themselves. They are there every day in the media, wearing suits and smiles, pointing fingers and making denials, wrapped in flags and carrying crosses, stars or sickles. For the relentlessly chronicled nature of Man is both the problem and the solution and no magic will save or doom us. All we need do is embrace fleeting humility before our own individual ends force us to. Imagine knowing now rather than on one's deathbed: eyes are for seeing, ears are for listening, minds are for thinking, hearts are for knowing.

There is no shame in realizing that the baser impulses of human nature have flourished for centuries like kudzu and the one impediment in the true evolution of the species is surely the hubris that allowed us to create magically omnipotent, supremely violent authority figures to control those baser impulses and tell us what we want to hear rather than what we need to know; the hubris that allows us to turn a blind eye to the realization of one of the most sophisticated and advanced civil concepts in human history; the hubris that allows us to behave inhumanely to members of our own, vast family. The shame is once knowing we do nothing.

To profiteer and call it "sacrifice", to create division and call it "unity", to be a corporate shill and call it "President of the United States". These are things that we see and hear every day and yet do little if anything to rectify.

So let's play a game. Every time you hear the word "country" replace it with "corporation." When you hear the word "politician" replace it with "salesman". It's the key to the code that has vexed human beings for centuries and that has the American public in an unshakable grip.

On Tuesday, April 3, President George W. Bush said: "I think the voters in America want Congress to support our troops who are in harm's way. They don't want politicians in Washington telling our generals how to fight a war." So the best Bush can do nowadays is to blame "politicians in Washington" for criticizing his war of choice in Iraq?
I felt like saying to him: "Dude, your granddaddy was a Senator, your daddy was president, and you're the key 'Washington politician' who sent the troops into 'harm's way' in the first place. What are you thinking?"

Somehow this little Bonaparte can prance around at the top of the food chain in Washington, raising money, cutting deals, politicizing key government departments, but then pretend in his own mind that he is some kind of Washington "outsider."

And then Bush responded to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's recent visit to Syria: "Sending delegations hasn't worked. It's just simply been counterproductive." This bold assertion raises the question: When did Bush ever send a delegation to Syria? And if he has never sent one then how does he know it has been "counterproductive?"

One Wednesday, April 4, Bush said of his "surge" in Iraq: "Just as the strategy is starting to make inroads, a narrow majority in the Congress passed legislation they knew all along I would not accept." This utterance is contemptible on two counts: 1). There is no evidence that the "surge" is making "inroads," (whatever that means); and 2). He seems to truly believe that the role of Congress is only to pass legislation he finds "acceptable."

And to rub salt in the wounds, he just made an end run around the Senate with three odious appointments. First, Bush used the Congressional recess to appoint Sam Fox, one of his big campaign donors, to be the ambassador to Belgium, a plumb assignment. Bush is rewarding Fox for his $50,000 contribution to "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," the vicious Bush campaign front that shamelessly pissed all over John Kerry's war record saying he didn't deserve the three Purple Hearts the U.S. Navy had awarded him. During the 2004 campaign, Bush told the bold faced lie that he had no ties to the group even though his Republican buddies from Texas, including Mr. Fox, bankrolled it.

Second, Bush appointed Andrew Biggs, a craven mouthpiece for the financial services industry who has spent a lifetime trying to privatize Social Security out of existence, to be his new deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Despite the GOP's loss of Congress in 2006, Bush insists on appointing foxes to protect chicken coops. Bush has lost not one iota of his startling arrogance.

Third, in yet another slap in the face of what it means to govern, Bush by-passed the Senate again to appoint Susan Dudley to be the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget. Ms. Dudley is a free-market ideologue of the highest order and does not believe the government has the right to regulate the private sector short of a "significant market failure." Where does Bush find these people?

So there you have it. Even after losing both houses of Congress, Bush is ruling as if he is some kind of emperor. He seems to be deliberately provoking Congress in the most immature and petulant manner. If the Congress does not move to impeach this President, then the impeachment clause in the Constitution is a dead letter.

HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered an excellent demonstration yesterday of why members of Congress should not attempt to supplant the secretary of state when traveling abroad.

Ms. Pelosi not only misrepresented Israel's position but was virtually alone in failing to discern that Mr. Assad's words were mere propaganda.

"We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace," Ms. Pelosi grandly declared. Never mind that that statement is ludicrous: As any diplomat with knowledge of the region could have told Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug whose overriding priority at the moment is not peace with Israel but heading off U.N. charges that he orchestrated the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. The really striking development here is the attempt by a Democratic congressional leader to substitute her own foreign policy for that of a sitting Republican president. Two weeks ago Ms. Pelosi rammed legislation through the House of Representatives that would strip Mr. Bush of his authority as commander in chief to manage troop movements in Iraq. Now she is attempting to introduce a new Middle East policy that directly conflicts with that of the president. We have found much to criticize in Mr. Bush's military strategy and regional diplomacy. But Ms. Pelosi's attempt to establish a shadow presidency is not only counterproductive, it is foolish.

Well anon, if Bush is, "not qualified to be president" I expect articles of impeachment from your representative tomorrow.....

Oh, that's right, those calling the President incompetent are themselves not doing anything to stop his incompetencey......by choice.

Again, despite your opinion, President Bush is PRESIDENT and retains all of the powers so assigned. Your crazed derangement and hatred only reflects on you. I simply point out that despite the heated rhetoric, Bush continues pursuing his policies. IF the entire American public thought Bush should not be president currently, I am sure there would be some kind of movement to make that so prior to 1/09.....almost TWO YEARS from now.....Wow, two years of incompetency! How could the Democrats allow this?......oh yeah.....because it is POLITICS and OPINION.

Nancy Pelosi did what the Bush administration is incapable of doing: Using diplomacy !
If the executive branch is not going to fufill their responsibilities to the American people, then the legislative branch will.
Thank you Speaker, for stepping up !

This is a continuation, in case Cecelia has the misfortune to return to this sandbox of angry children:

"For the same reason you give for our not allowing group marriage between consenting adults. They believe it destablilizes the family unit and society as a whole."

I suppose I have to add a corrolary to the point that to avoid being subject to this charge of un-American activities, the argument they are making has to be not only aiming at individual freedom, but sincerely held and have some logical basis. Child pornography can quite reasonably be assumed to endanger children. It isn't the "thought crime," it is the physical crime of forcing children into sexual exploits, which is addressed on both the demand and supply side, like drugs. The civil authority doesn't care what you "think," it cares that your actions either directly or secondarily endanger children. Polygamy creates demographic and legal problems, a point I hope we can take as given to avoid getting remedial. Can you cite similar drawbacks to gay marriage? Can anyone? Do they really even try?

Whistling dixie about individual freedom with a bible hidden behind your back doesn't cut it for me. You will say I cannot be a mind reader and know these people's complete motivation. True. But when an argument makes no logical sense, AND it happens to coincide with sectarian beliefs that these same people say are a higher law than the civil law, I can put two and two together if they say they are only concerned about practical civil matters.

This is the case for Dobson and equal civil rights for homosexuals. I've yet to hear the cogent explanation of how homosexual civil rights "weakens" heterosexual marriages. It simply doesn't in any logical sense. It is taken as a given--because these people say they believe it was given, by god, in their sacred text, though it's pretty hard to find in the bible. The word "sanctity" is worked into every other sentence, however "civil" and "secular" the venue and debate. Shall we check into the language of the painfully careful Dobson on these points, who is trying to provide you just the room for ambiguity of motivation that you are running with here? Shall we check the deliberately less-careful Bush? I doubt you really disagree on this but go ahead and surprise me.

You may say that they think anything we do with which their god disagrees weakens "society as a whole." Fine. But then are they really so far from theocracy in this regard as you seem to want to suggest? The Iranian theocrats base all of their oppression of gays and women on the notion that allowing them equal freedoms would "weaken their society as a whole." This is simply not an American argument. And again, there is a similar strain of thought here, not in degree, but in kind.

To bring tthis back to where it started, that similar strain of thought in the U.S. is what Amedinijad is trying to call on as a brother in arms when he questions women who should have babes in arms having arms in arms. Ultimately, I think this is the ground that the Iranian regime will try to make it's peace with the U.S. upon. If the last decade or so were America's real trajectory rather than a weird temporary backlash, it might work. But news of liberalism's death and "conservatism's" ascendancy was in fact greatly exaggerated. It has given regimes like Iran many victories, from the legitimization of torture, forced confession, and kangaroo justice, to the restriction of human rights and the rehabilitation of the concept of "spiritually guided" civil authority. This almost comical incident of kidnapping and forced confession underscores our own moral slide.

But we'll dry out sooner or later and return to championing America's traditional liberal values.

realist,
Why do you make excuses for the Syrain regime?
Why do Leftists believe they can deal with Islamo-Fascists. Syria supports Islamic militant groups. They murdered a Lebanese PM.
Why should we reward them. In the Islamic world, talking is a sign of weakness.
I still don't understand The Left's support of Islamo-Fascism?

VOK,
The Left supports the Iranian regime.
Why does the media support Iran?

However I do believe we should leave Iraq.
That way the Sunnis, Shias, Al-Qaeda, Hizb'Allah, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia all fight and destroy each other!
If the end result of Iraq is that the Muslims fight, kill and weaken each other, then I consider that a success.
After they devestate each other we should provide no aid.
Let them take decades to rebuild.
Hopefully because of the high oil prices, we'll be forced to use alternative energy.
A win win.
The Muslims nuts will become harmless carpet sellers!

Yeah, Bush 's incompetency is only "opinion".
Cee is some laughable loon!

For the all the recent Bush Administration outrages " firing eight U.S. Attorneys for political reasons, lying about it, lying about it again, recklessly ratcheting up the rhetoric on Iran (totally unintentional alliteration), lying yet again about the U.S. Attorneys " sometimes you've got to go back in time to realize just how spectacularly these guys blend outright deceit with jaw-dropping incompetence.

Also, just look at the ugly history of the Medicare prescription drug bill .Most outrageous, of course, the bill's refusal " at the insistence of Tom Delay, George Bush and the drug companies " to allow Medicare to negotiate lower prices for drugs.

The list is endless.
An abbreviated list :

From turning Clinton's surplus into the largest deficit in history, thru sitting immobile and helpless for 7 minutes while our country was under attack( he didn't know at the time if it was a nuclear attack, and missiles can get here in a matter of minutes) thru the lies to the runup to war, to the lack of knowledge of the regional differences in Iraq that would throw that country into the chaos it is today,to the poor post war planning,not heeding his generals advice, the war profiteering that has been ignored,the long list of cronyism such as the unforgettable Brownie who "didn't know the difference between a tropical depression and an anxiety attack when Bush charged him with life-and-death decisions," onto the Katrina cleanup debacle ,bypassing the Constitution on domestic spying,the torture scandals, the Walter Reed scandal, the lack of engagement on global warming where the Supreme Court just had to rebuke Bush this week on this failures in this area etc etc etc.on and on and on.

Notice that Great Britain helped get the hostages released without saber rattling like Bush.Also notice that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad didn't torture the hostages while they were being held.

These two incidents, I regret to say, has made the Bush Administration and the United States look inferior in the ways it was handled.

This president has made the wrong choices in almost everything he has encountered.

VOK,
The Left supports the Iranian regime.
Why does the media support Iran?

The "logical" answer that I have been programmed to give by comrade Barak is (a.) that it doesn't, (b.) that it doesn't, and (c. ) that the Bush administration has accomplished more for a theocratic Iran than all the mullahs and ayatollahs put together.

The real answer, as I'm sure you have guessed, is more complicated. You see, way back in 1776 a bunch of vampires and proto-hippies got together and decided to form a secret cabal who's ultimate goal was to ensure that the U.N. would take over the world, stamp numbers on everyone's forehead, and force your daughter to marry either another woman or a "carpet-seller," as you so aptly put it. That way the vampires can have access to good "hybrid" blood, which is what they prefer.

This is all just the flowering of that great conspiracy to turn all of humanity into a vast managed herd for the benefit of vampires and Wayne Newton (Wayne Newton's motivations in all this are more complicated--don't worry about it). And the Bush administration is the last thing standing in our way. Watch your back. We're everywhere. We're gunna gitcha! "Obamarama" is the secret password.

Again, how does your characterizations of events affect Bush one iota?.....And why does he remain in office?.....POLITICS....just like that list you cut and pasted and the current "scandal" regarding the AG.....it is politics pure and simple.....You can claim incompetence all you want.....but if your ruling class is not acting accordingly and in the same degree as their rhetoric....then it is ONLY WORDS.

It is like if my boss screamed I was incompetent and did not fire me.....allowed me to remain in my position with the same power and authority.....The rhetoric is that, no true belief behind it because there is no action to solve the problem.

The editorial is ignorant. Pelosi was given a message by the Israelis (as evidenced by the fact that they said she "got it wrong"). More likely, the Israelis stabbed Pelosi in the back as a personal favor to Bush.

Lots of misinformation is floating around. Oh no! Pelosi is wearing a head scarf (only to visit the tomb of John the Baptist). Too bad you girls weren't whining when Laura Bush and Rice did the same thing.

"Lots of misinformation is floating around. Oh no! Pelosi is wearing a head scarf (only to visit the tomb of John the Baptist). Too bad you girls weren't whining when Laura Bush and Rice did the same thing."

Laura Bush and Rice shouldn't have worn a scraf neither.
However pelosi is a feminist and should've refused to wear a hijab.

"Perhaps you condone female circumcision in this country, or should we continue to keep it illegal? "

Female Circumcision should be banned in America.
Also I would walk into a synagouge without a Yarmuka. I'm Catholic, not Jewish. I'm a Gentile who worships the Jewish Messiah, hence Jewish law doesn't apply to me.

You mean they ain't shouldn't a-done had weared no scarf no neither-how? Thems women-folks is supposedta be all high and mighty and whatnot, ain't awttent a be bowin' down to them there carpet-sellin' brown folk.

"If the end result of Iraq is that the Muslims fight, kill and weaken each other, then I consider that a success."

/disgusted_sarcasm/
Yesssss! Let the heathen blood flow across the land as a healthy purging river! Let us rejoice in the blood of our Muslim enemies!!!
\disgusted_sarcasm\

"At a late-February press briefing, White House spokesman Tony Snow was asked about reports that two Army brigades were being sent to Iraq without any desert training. His reply was widely quoted at the time: "Well, but, they can get desert training elsewhere, like in Iraq." "
...and Olberman claims to be a freind of this vulture? What a dick!
Posted by: Sir Loin of Beef at April 6, 2007 9:00 AM

When it was announced that Tony Snow got liver cancer, Sir Olbermann proclaimed on Countdown that he was Tony's email baseball buddy, and was sure to let all his viewers know that Tony watches Countdown. (I would think Mr. Snow, as part of his job, would watch Countdown just to note how Dem. talking points are being delivered). At any rate, if you are a good friend, how about a private heartfelt email...but, wait, we are talking about Olbermann here, if he does this privately then HE can not demonstrate this DEEP & HEARTFELT COMPASSION, even for... "yikes" Republicans.

This Tony Snow shout out came one day after Olbermann crowed on Countdown sending Elizabeth Edwards get well wishes and reminding his audience that she & her son bonded because of watching him when he was on ESPN). At least Olbermann is bipartisan when spreading the heartfelt "I'm part of your cancer story" compassion.

BTW: from the Washington Post, The Sleuth by Mary Ann Akers:
Posted at 5:30 AM ET, 04/ 4/2007
Edwards Provides Lesson in E-Campaigning 101
When you visit the John Edwards for President Web site, you're invited to send a sympathy note to the Edwardses. And tens of thousands of well wishers have done so since that heart-wrenching news conference two weeks ago at which Elizabeth Edwards courageously discussed her incurable cancer.
What those well wishers get in return -- e-mail messages soliciting contributions to Edwards's campaign.

When did I post such a stupid idea......You miss my point, Anon......Since YOU and the liberal ruling class are claiming incompetency, it would be logically incumbant on you and your ideological ilk to be pursuing CONSTITUTIONAL remedies to end the president's term prior to 1/09. Nothing is happening to that end so I am only to assume that all the words, editorials and speeches ARE POLITICS......Attempts to sure up a position of power with rhetoric....

That is why the surge continues unabated by the liberal ruling class in congress despite their constitutional ability to end the funding of same NOW.

That is why Bush remains in office unhampered to continue his policies without threat of removal from office.

Two BIG issues you scream about Anon, but have been impotent in DOING anything about.

Name calling and jokes are fine for the school yard, but LEADERSHIP and GOVERNING are serious things and the left has yet to show any ability higher than the childish whining......all along allowing Bush to continue to do whatever he wants! Nice.

As a democrat it disgusts me that the Soros led Pro-Islamic Left has taken over my party. THey blindly defend our enemies but attck fellow Americans who have a different view point.
Unfortunently the Republicans aren't that better since they're controlled by Globalist Corporations that are disloyal to their own country. They alos are in bed with the Oil Sheiks.
I wish a real Nationalist American 1st party would arise.
It's sickening.

Anon is dense......I am saying that those who make such overheated claims without doing substantial things to stop Bush only have political motives......They don't even believe half the things they claim half the time.

I ignore nothing.....the deleterious effects you claim are nothing but your conjecture and opinion. I see political winners and losers everyday, but I will not agree with your "sky is falling" rhetoric with regard to the world, Anon.....I am optimistic that our country will continue on despite the cheap political games both major parties play.

VOK,
I'm not a NAZi you idiot. I'm an American concerned about the Islamic threat.
Oh bye the way Stormfront hates me more that it hates Muslims. Like the Radical Left, the Racist Right is allied with Islam also.
In case you didn't know, I'm Latin.
I'm Italo-Argentine and Cuban.
So hah keep steroe typiny. Nationalism means love of one's Nation. A nation can be composed many races.
If anything I'm a Civilizationist.
To that I pleed guilty I belive in the survival of The Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian civilization.
Islam ain't for me.

"Why does Bush aid and support the Jihadists through his incompetence?"

I agree. He's given into the Media too much. He's too nice to the Muslims.
Probably because he's buddies with the Saudis.
If you read my post I crticized both Democrats and Republics.

Also the Left has supported Jihadis by defending them in the media, bitch about Gitmo and praising Iran and Syria.
I blame Bush, The Media and The Radical Left for the growing Islamic tide.
Like Sharks, they smeel blood.

BTW, the rebuke by the Supreme court of Bush must have made Cee proud.

His policies are putting our country at risk where even the Supreme court steps in and Cee just continues to wave the Bush flag.

Also, in today's news,Vice President Cheney repeated his assertions of al-Qaida links to Saddam Hussein's Iraq on Thursday as the Defense Department released a report citing more evidence that the prewar government did not cooperate with the terrorist group.

This group of morons are just an embarrassment to the USA.
But it's all OK, they're not impeached ! ( Cee logic )

Brain,
The Republicans are too much Corporatist for my taste. They don't discuss outsourcing, they believe in Free Trade and give tax cuts to rich Corporations that pay nothing.
They also are obssed with abortion and Gay marriage.
I'm concered about the rising Islamic tide.
The only person in either party I can vote for is Rudy Giulliani.
He's a Nationa;list and won't let the Left, the Media, The Corporations and The Muslims push us around.
He's being attack by both the Left and the Right.
That's why I like him.
If he's not the GOP nominee, I will not vote, I'll abstain.
Neither party is honest with the American people.

The real Irony here is that if Joker, Jeff, Cecelia, Grammie, and the like HAPPENED to be born in Iraq or Iran instead of the good ole US of A, they would be the biggest boot-lickers of their own oppressive regimes.

Blindly following their leader with a 'My Country, Right or Wrong' attitude, they would make the perfect little Jihadists.

Too bad they were born here in the US and have to be 'Our' little 'American Jihadists.'

Your own ignorant and bling 'nationalism' is just Kool Aid of a different flavor my friends.

Used to be the US stood for Freedom. Now we just stand for the Freedom to be anything you want to be, as long as you choose correctly...and if not, you get bombed or 'occupied.'

"Now we just stand for the Freedom to be anything you want to be, as long as you choose correctly...and if not, you get bombed or 'occupied.'"

What about Islamic agression in Thailand and the Philipines?
what about Isalmic gangs terrorizing French cities.
Just 3 days ago Islamic youths roited in a French train station.
What about Islamic Jihad of the 7th century.

Your ignorant statements of defending Islamic Radicsls is the reason I've given up hope for this country.
The Left doesn't get it!
The Right blindly follows Bush!
Nobody gets it!

Thank you for you incisive analysis of why we liberals don't want the incompetent republicans in office. Perhaps if you tried thinking, instead of childish insults, you'd have a slim chance of coming up with something valuable.

Joker I understand...Its not easy. After never, ever voting GOP AND YEARS OF real hate for the GOP I had to do it.

True the Dems do not understand the nature of this ememy. Nor do they understand this has been along time in coming. This is a clash of cultures where one side has decided the gloves are off. While we are held back by the ghosts of the 60’s past.

Brain,
It's deeper than that. The Left is very well orgainized. They control the Media, Universities and the Entertainment industry.
They are very well financed and backed by people like George Soros and Iranian oil money.
They are a cancer that must be removed.
I know as a Democrat I get daily emails by Leftist groups on what to say and how to attack Bush, The Military and yes, to defend Iran!
The Left is allied with Ilsmaic radicals.
I recive emails to show support foe Hizb'Allah or any other Islamic cause.
That's why I know how the Left thinks.
I've infiltrated tham.
Heck I've even gone to some of their rallies.
That's why I know thwy support Islamo-Fascism.

"After never, ever voting GOP AND YEARS OF real hate for the GOP I had to do it."

I don't hate the GOP. If they purge themselves of the Corporatists and Religious Right, they can can be the Nationalist party of America. Must GOP voters get it comes to the Islamic threat.
Unfortunently their leadership is ion bed with Saudi and UAE interests.
The Dems, forget it. They're in the back pocket of International Leftists and Pro-Iranian Islamists.
It's sad.

I ignore nothing.....the deleterious effects you claim are nothing but your conjecture and opinion.
Posted by: cee at April 6, 2007 1:17 PM

Conjecture and opinion ?
Was the bungled Iraq War, Katrina Debacle, Medicare Prescription Bill 's giveaway to the drug companies, Walter Reed scandal,stifling of scientists and rebuke by the Supreme Court on global warming etc. conjecture and opinion ?
You lie and are a total fool.
But most of all, you are the antithesis of a patriot.
Our forefathers made it clear it was not only our right but our duty to hold our government accountable for their misdeeds.
You give them a pass AND actually support those misdeeds.

A realist,
People respect you more when you are yourself. The Muslims don't respect us, why should we respect them.
As a true Leftist you'll defend the Islamic radicals to no end.
You just keep making my point.

True the Dems do not understand the nature of this ememy. Nor do they understand this has been along time in coming. This is a clash of cultures where one side has decided the gloves are off. While we are held back by the ghosts of the 60’s past.
Posted by: Brian at April 6, 2007 1:53 PM

Yet the American people strongly favor the Democrats to deal with terrorism( after they've seen what a complete failure the GOP has been) as every poll shows.
Brian: Still drinking the Kool Aid.

People respect you more when you are yourself. The Muslims don't respect us, why should we respect them.
As a true Leftist you'll defend the Islamic radicals to no end.
You just keep making my point.
Posted by: at April 6, 2007 2:04 PM

You keep confusing the 1% of Islam who we are at war with with the other 99% hard working average everyday people.
Ignorance is a terrible thing to hold on to.

YOU and your ilk ( and your ignorance) are continuing to perpetuate the problems we have in this world.

"Yet the American people strongly favor the Democrats to deal with terrorism( after they've seen what a complete failure the GOP has been) as every poll shows."

Dems deal with terror! Ha ha ha!
Bye praising Syrians and Iranians.
Bush has botched this, agreed but the Dems don't have a clue as what to do.
Also look at the name war on Terror.
It's should be the war on Radical Islam.
Neither gets it.

But, Bush is, by definition, a terrorist. He has killed between thirty and three hundred thousand innocent people in Iraq. He's bombed houses and restaurants, immolated children, killed entire wedding parties.

"YOU and your ilk ( and your ignorance) are continuing to perpetuate the problems we have in this world."

What about Islam's Jihad against Christians and Zorastorians in the 7th Century?
Peace ful religion.
It's your il who through ignorance of history is what's leading to the Fall of western Civilization.
Look at Europe years of appeasing Muslims and allowing them to move there has created a situation where in 20-30 years Muslims will control Europe.
If oit wasn't for Hispanic Immigration here, this country would be Islamicizing also.
You are naive don't understand a death cult started by a genocidle pedophile named Mohammad.
Read about Islamic history as I have, then come talk to me.
I know your repeating Leftist talking points.
So it doesn't fly with me.

Bush has botched this, agreed but the Dems don't have a clue as what to do.
Also look at the name war on Terror.
It's should be the war on Radical Islam.
Neither gets it.
Posted by: The Joker at April 6, 2007 2:11 PM

How the hell do you know?

When the Democrats get the presidency in 2008, then they will have the opportunity to fight terrorism the way it should be fought.
Just do the opposite of what Bush has done would be an improvement.

Jackboot indiscriminate killing of people is NOT the way to fight terrorism.
Has it worked so far?
For starters, a good defense is the best offense.
We are at risk in this country with our military stretched too far.
We have yet to see what the democrats will do . We'll get that chance in 08'.

"When the Democrats get the presidency in 2008, then they will have the opportunity to fight terrorism the way it should be fought."

Bye kissing up to Iran and Syria. Ha ha!
They view that as weakness.
Also bad news, Rudy will win the GOP nomination and crush your leader Hillary in the general.
Rudy is the Republican the Left fears. I know.
I recieve emails from Leftists groupos and they fear him.
Hope nfully the GOP will run ads showing Pelosi with a Jihab and pictures of here with that Thug Assad!
But know the Republicans, they're too wussy to take the gloves off.

You can't stop people who want to committ terrorism everywhere in the world.
We CAN defend our country. We can't do this under this administrtion's priorities.

All this huff and puff and blow your house down by Brian, Joker etc. is unrealistic.

We need a common sense approach to terrorism.
But most of all we need better domestic policies aND..Global warming is a bigger threat to mankind than terrorism is, yet we are doing nothing about it.
Fix the things we can...FIRST.

"Why do you think the large majority of the American people are against him and this war, you fool ?
"

The majority of people don't like him because he's not fighting to win in Iraq. If oredred the army and Air Force tto level the place and then level Syria and Iran. Then level Saudi Arabia and than bring the troops home and leave their nations in ruins. His popularity would be 70%.
Most Americans hate Muslims.
They feel as if Bush isn't fighting to win.
That's why not because they agree with you Leftist.
Go to any bar and ask people what they think of Islam and you'll see your answer.

Guiliani will never win the nomination.WAY too much baggage. Do you think the self righteous, religious right wing will vote for a man who has dressed in drag on many occasions?
Those pictures will doom him.
His own family( kids) doesn't even support him.
His views on gay, abortion etc will doom him.
When people campaigned for him to put central communications headquarters in Brooklyn , he balked, and put it in the World Trade Center.Then 9/11 happened.
Guess where it is now?
In Brooklyn !

"You can't stop people who want to committ terrorism everywhere in the world.
We CAN defend our country. We can't do this under this administrtion's priorities.""

As a true Leftist you don't get it!
It's not about Terroriam.
It's about Islamic Imperialism!
Don't you understand!
As for Global warming, it's a farce.
What's going on is Climate Change that will eventually lead to a new Ice Age!
The solution for Climate Change is the same for Islamo-Fascism.
Alternative energy,
Ethanol, Nuclear powerFuel Cells, Solar and wind.
It will help our economy, help the enviornment and bankrupt the Muslims.
They will become poor harmless Camel riders, Goat herders and Carpet Sellers.
They will be harmless and just fight each other.

The only candidtae discussing this solution is Rudy Giulliani!
No one else is.
Alterbativce Energy is the magic bullet!

the realist,
If Rudy will not be the GOP nominee why does the Left fear him?
Why is the Leftist Press attacking him now?
They know he would crush Hillary in the 2008 election.
You know this too.
He neutralizes the Left on social issues and will bring in Nationalist democrats to vote for him.
He will win.
If not, then all Hillary will do is put on a Hijab and kiss up to Iran and AL-Qaeda.
We will get hit and hit hard.
Then she'll just keep kissing up.
It's the Leftist way!

"As for Global warming, it's a farce.
What's going on is Climate Change that will eventually lead to a new Ice Age!"

Now you've totally displayed your ignorance.
With the glaciers melting in Antarctica, droughts becoming more prevalent and the recent rebuke of our own Supreme Court of Bush on global warming puts the Joker squarely on the side of the uneducated, delusional people everywhere.

My God, Climate change is real , and threatening our planet and all you want to do is kill all the Muslims.
Get a job, read, something...educate yourself.

Ha, gotcha!
As a Leftist who's ignorant about history you don't see the big picture.
The war between Islam and the west has been going since the 7th century. This is just the latest round of that war.
Only this time they have the advantage.
They have Leftists like you defending them and denying the threat form them.
You just keep proving my point.
The Left supports and enables Islamo-Fascism.
As your Cult leader Teheran Keith would say:
Great Thanks!

A realist
But, Bush is, by definition, a terrorist. He has killed between thirty and three hundred thousand innocent people in Iraq. He's bombed houses and restaurants, immolated children, killed entire wedding parties.

Proves the point ! No more posts from me needed.

These folks are just nuts...plain nuts.

By the way pal that whole wedding party thing was a SET UP. But you fell for it, because you believe the ememy and love the ememy more then you love your own country.

Anon, I will bite on one of your over stated "the sky is falling" examples.......

The Supreme Court ruling....."A REBUKE" according to your OPINION

The 5 to 4 ruling only sided with those that believe CO2 should be classified as a pollutant.....hence, it is the opinion of a majority that it is the responsibility of the executive to enforce the law as it pertains to pollution with regards to CO2.

So, with a legal ruling, not a "rebuke" as you emotionally call it, we now recognize CO2 as a pollutant. Fine. Regulations in that regard can go into effect and we will see if all of the predictions of human induced global climate change will come to fruition or not.

When China surpasses the US as the chief producer of CO2, what will you do then? And as their economy continues to grow untouched by regulation to reduce CO2 and our economy is stifiled by such regulations, who will you blame then as people lose their jobs?

You see, there is a difference of opinion on whether drastically restricting CO2 like the radical left wants will be in the best interests of the US or not. 5 people on the supreme court think it will be ok to restrict our economy.......I respect their decision and we will see what happens.

Oh, and BTW, Bush is still President and I did not read any writings by the supremes that he did anything "illegal" or that they "rebuke" him. Difference of opinion on what a pollutant is (I am so glad to know that what I exhale as a natural process of BREATHING is now classified as an air pollutant) is what the case was about and the supremes narrowly agreed that the law should include CO2. It is bad news for our economic security and it will do NOTHING in the long run to help the environment.

Ha ha ha!
With the Media and The Left allied with them, if Iran helped Al-Qaeda or Hizb'Allah commit a terror attack, you guys will justify it.
You'll call for talks and negotiations.
The Left will organize and prevent a response.
That's why they will hit us.
They have you guys supporting them.

That's basically all Cee has at this point. That "bush is still president".
His deplorable record as president is just a small inconvenient fact to this madman , Cee.

"It is bad news for our economic security and it will do NOTHING in the long run to help the environment."

Since EXCESSIVE co2 is the main cause of global warming, and threatening our planet, cee's worried about the economy.
Educate yourself, little bald man, and see how green policies can actually be an asset to our economy as it is in Europe.

What what does it matter if the ice caps are melting, and our way of life is threatened?
Bush is still president , right ?
Hahahahaha
What an idiot !

Joker, I can't believe you just admitted you are a Cuban. What the hell?! I have no doubt your communist butt would just love to get us into a protracted war so all the capitalists and oil producing countries wipe each other out--your favorite strategy. I have no doubt that is why you promote the slaughter of muslims and endless war for the U.S. Then you and your Castro-loving kind can march back in and recapture New Mexico. Sorry comrade, but we should have nuked all you guys back in the 70's instead of letting you slowly establish your sleeper cells among us. Now the liberal leftist elites have this country so confused that they don't even know how to deal with your kind.

BTW don't even bother with your "hey, my family hates Castro, we fled Cuba...yada yada yada." What is a Cuban agent supposed to say to get in to America?

Poor Anon.....When the climate continues to change despite the feeble attempts of man to decrease CO2, what will you do? Why is China and the thrid world not required to reduce their CO2 output? Again, you want America to fail and be weak. Europe's economy still pales in comparison to The United States, Anon....."greening" has shown NO economic benefit when looked at objectively.

You are a silly chicken-little scared of his own shadow, Anon. Fear, and living by it, is a poor way to live. I am optimistic about the future because I know there are still adults in power that do not live in fear. They are leaders.

Bush continues his great policies, and I am glad he does. The surge continues in Iraq and I hope the troops are victorious for the sake of the people in Iraq who want freedom. Unlike you, Anon, who cheers every death because you have decided defeat is good for The United States and couldn't care less what happens to the good people of Iraq.

Fear, failure, weakness, death of Iraqis and Americans.....why are you for these things, Anon? It seems sad to me!

"I have proven today beyond a resonable doubt that the Left is either in denial about the Islamic threat or supports and make excuses for it."

As I have proven that Cuban agents would be delighted if they were able to get their sleeper cells to whip America into an full bore anti-muslim oil war frenzy to get their eye off the communist ball and give them an opening.

Does anyone seriously believe that nukes never mangaged to slip into Cuba? While we play footsie with a bunch of backwards carpet-sellers, Castro has 92 million Americans in the crosshairs of his medium range nukes. And countless agents trying to bleed us dry.

Funny, you advocate nuking Hispnics who are Christian and yet you support Muslims.
Great logic or lack of it.
Like a true Leftists you just hate Western Civilization.
A Leftist that hates Hispanics but likes Muslims.
Well to bad loser we're here in America and we ain't leaving!
To bad we're jhere and preventing the Islamicization of America!
You guys have Europe go live there!

"I accept your surrender, Joker"
Ha Ha,
Read below:

From Left leaning CBS:
Pure Horserace: Is Rudy Too Moderate?
Giuliani's Support For Abortion Funding Could Be Too Much For GOP Conservatives

April 5, 2007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani speaks during a fundraiser in New York on March 14, 2007. Giuliani's support for public funding of abortions may cost him some conservative support. (AP Photo)

(CBS) Rudy Giuliani's continued first-place finishes in polls of Republican primary voters has always been somewhat surprising: Yes, Giuliani has the name recognition that usually helps candidates out at this early stage, but it's also never been a secret that he doesn't adhere to the socially conservative views held by a large chuck of the GOP base. In fact, his views on abortion, gay rights and gun control have been the dominant focus of media coverage of his campaign — that, and his troubled personal life.

But judging by some recent statements, Giuliani isn't exactly trying to soothe conservative concerns. On TV and during a swing through the early primary state of South Carolina, Giuliani has reaffirmed his support for public financing of abortions for women who cannot afford them.

"Ultimately I believe it's an individual right, and a woman should make that choice," he said.

Republicans' views on abortion are not uniform. Some want them banned outright, some want to allow it only in cases of rape and incest and others favor full abortion rights. But, in a party that views public funding of even non-controversial medical procedures with skepticism, putting taxpayer money toward abortions is pretty much off the table.

In the past, Giuliani has tried to temper his stance somewhat by saying he believes states should decide on public funding, not Congress. He has also claimed that, if given the chance to nominate someone to the Supreme Court, he would pick a strict constructionist in the mold of Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas — both of whom have criticized the court's 1977 ruling in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion nationwide.

Christian conservatives might see this as nothing more than sugar-coating in light of his latest pronouncements. To them, abortion is a moral issue, not a legal one. Allowing it, much less funding it, in one state is as bad as doing so in any other.

So far at least, Giuliani's approach hasn't seemed to hurt him in the polls or on the fundraising front. Emphasizing his views on national security and his role as New York mayor during 9/11 have been the signatures of his campaign. A greater emphasis on his socially liberal views, however, could lead to tumult in the polls — and leave an opening for anyone waiting in the wings, like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich or former Sen. Fred Thompson.

Many people in Germany consider the United States as more dangerous than Iran, according to a poll by Forsa released by Stern and RTL. 48 per cent of respondents say the U.S. is the biggest threat to global peace, while 31 per cent think Iran is...

"As I have proven that Cuban agents would be delighted if they were able to get their sleeper cells to whip America into an full bore anti-muslim oil war frenzy to get their eye off the communist ball and give them an opening."

Defending Muslims at all costs.
Upu just keep proving my point.
The Left makes excuses for Mulsims no matter what!

"Many people in Germany consider the United States as more dangerous than Iran, according to a poll by Forsa released by Stern and RTL. 48 per cent of respondents say the U.S. is the biggest threat to global peace, while 31 per cent think Iran is..."

Of course they do. The Internationalist Leftist Press has attacked non stop the US.
They also portray Iran and The Muslims as good.
I have said here many times I admire the Left's propaganda machine.
It's the most effective Propaganda machine I have ever seen!

Nancy Pelosi did what the Bush administration is incapable of doing: Using diplomacy !
If the executive branch is not going to fufill their responsibilities to the American people, then the legislative branch will.
Thank you Speaker, for stepping up !

Posted by: a realist at April 6, 2007 11:08
AM

Who is this moron? Making a terrorist state that is not recognized by world, into a legitimate regime is diplomacy? Maybe to you, Jimmy Carter, and Hezbollah. Now when Syria assassinates someone or fires rockets at Israel they can say, " Its Ok, Nancy said we could". You are a disgrace who hates your country.

No need to explain any further.With comments like that , you just showed the world what you're made of.

Bush's policies have PROVEN to be failures.
( And I listed just a small % of the failures) which you ignored.
I understand why.

It also has been proven that Bush have stifled research in the global warming area. With a matter of such great importance and consequence to our nation in the world, for you to continue to support this unchristian-like behavior says alot about you.

Another fact is that the poor in the US have increased each of the years Bush has been in office.
Wonder what Jesus would say about a president like that.
You being such a holy roller, would place you as a hypocrite to support such a man.

"Unlike you, Anon, who cheers every death because you have decided defeat is good for The United States and couldn't care less what happens to the good people of Iraq."

No...Bush has decided that defeat is good for America, by undertaking a war we cannot win, by not giving the generals the troops that they needed when they requested it, when we still had a chance to win the war.
He's the one who couldn't care less about the troops by not providing the armor they needed, and for the deplorable conditions at Walter Reed( and many other facilities) due to his privatizing plan .
Another "great policy, eh ?
An Army contract to privatize maintenance at Walter Reed Medical Center was delayed more than three years amid bureaucratic bickering and legal squabbles that led to staff shortages and a hospital in disarray just as the number of severely wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan was rising rapidly.

The Army began studying the cost benefits of privatization in 2000.

When Bush took office, he mandated the competitive outsourcing of 425,000 federal jobs. At the time, the Pentagon was aggressively pushing for increased outsourcing, and in June 2003, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a Senate committee he was considering outsourcing up to 320,000 nonmilitary support jobs.

That's the same year that the Army asked for bids on Walter Reed and, coincidentally, the same year the United States invaded Iraq.

It was all downhill from there.

So who really doesn't care about the troops ?
It's your "great' president, that who !

Just look at the facts, you deluded fool. And save your right wing propaganda for those who don't know better.
I'll slam it right back in your face each time you push your bullsh-t on me.
George Bush: Worst president ever.
You and he will never live that down.

It also has been proven that Bush have stifled research in the global warming area. With a matter of such great importance and consequence to our nation in the world, for you to continue to support this unchristian-like behavior says alot about you.
Posted by: at April 6, 2007 4:07 PM

Your statement just proves you are the dumbest person in the world.

Here is more evidence
Strong and widespread cold described March this year all across Alaska. Temperatures throughout the mainland were more than 8°F below average and the most extreme temperature departures of more than 16°F below average were observed in the central Interior. Areas along the Arctic coast and the southeast panhandle had relative warmth with temperature departures less than 8°F below average. The portions of the state that had extreme cold also received little in the way of precipitation as clear and sunny skies dominated. A location that received more than its fair share of snowfall was Juneau, breaking daily, monthly, and seasonal snowfall records. The vernal equinox, or time of year when daylight and darkness are approximately equal across the earth, occurred on March 20th. This a time of year in Alaska with rapid changes in daylight from day to day and large diurnal temperature ranges.

Global warming is a hoax. Educate yourself and watch "The Great Global Warming Swindle". I thought I stomped you fools out long ago. I guess I will still need to post the daily articles that show global warming is a myth and a fairy tale.
.

"Funny, you advocate nuking Hispnics who are Christian and yet you support Muslims.
Great logic or lack of it."

Look, you're obviously not a native speaker, so I can forgive you not seeing the satire of my post. And you're no liberal, so I can understand that you don't really believe in multiculturalism beyond what you think is good for YOU and your family or race. But sweet Jesus, anyone should understand as a "civilized" human being that you simply do not advocate for the deaths of millions of people in the name of protecting yourself from a few among them. Your post encouraging and celebrating "Muslim" civil war is as nasty and barbaric as you can get. It has nothing to do with "western civilization" or American values. It is simply bloodthirsty. And in that sense, you have a lot more in common with Amedinijad than you do with me or anyone else committed to America's traditional values.

But as I have said, this is no small part of the current "conservative" culture. It's just sad that someone who probably would have been the victim of this kind of thing a couple decades ago now wants to visit it on someone else.

Here is a good Shakespearian triple-entendre epithet for all the olbersessed multitudes here (there are 4 or 5 at least) yearning to swim in the blood of the evil Muslim hoards:

Even the 'scientists' bought by the Oil Companies don't say Global Warming is a 'Myth.'

They say the warming is normal and not caused by human activity.

They're wrong of course, and they know it, but at least they aren't propagating the 'myth and fairytale' scenario as Mr. non-Factor puts it.

On second thought, I think he's right. I remember a majority of the world's leading scientists reporting that Global Warming is real, unless of course we have any cold days ahead of us, in which case we're proved wrong.

(I think there might be a little more to it than the temperatures in inland Alaska on March 20th, but I'll take the scientific communitie's word for it over some foul-mouthed Olbersessed idiot on a Fox-loving NeoCon Blog dedicated to bashing someone who does the same thing as the people they admire.)

I'm not charging you with being unamerican, on the contrary, you've made that charge against many religious conservatives. Rather I'm suggesting that your attitudes can certainly be deemed as repressive in nature and by your own standards.

Up to this point i've ignored the self-referential nature of your argument. Your assumption that the entire gambit of new rights that have been found within the Constitution or are being championed by litigation or legislation now, are in fact a sign of progress.

I have no problem with your seeing it that way. Where we part company is your inability to make room for those who do not. That has the flavor of religious dogma to it. The sense of blasphemy, of my way or the highway.

You argue that those restrictions in our society with which you concur are based in reason and logic. But are they really? In giving the example of child pornography laws ( I'm not aruging for a change in pornography law, it is merely an example) some feel that the restriction of the sale of illustrations depicting children (no real children depicted) is tantamount to thought crime and is based upon arguments that religious people make against pornography of all sorts. You just formulated that argument entirely in that the thought leads to the act of crime against children. Again, that is essentially the same argument religious people make-- the act of seeing feeds the desire (the sin) and easily leads to the actual act-- everything from fornication to rape and murder.

Let me point out to that your use of the terms "supply and demand" as to pornography, drugs (called "temptation in some circles...) is interesting too. Those who wish a decriminalization of all illegal drugs often argue that it is not at all logical to suggest that supply increases demand. They agree with economists---scarcity increases demand...

Your justification of anit- polygamy laws based on what your justify as being a logical arguments about the legal issues, is as though these issues could not possibly be resolved. You mention gay unions, but the people who opposed them long brought up the same issues regarding the natural outflow of marriage-- children.

It takes a ova and sprerm to make rug rats. The legalities involving contractural issues as well as the effect of making, what is a worst case scenario of male-female marriage, a standardized litigious process fundamental to all aspects of the relationship, inspired deep concern. You lightly dismss these concerns now while finding polygamy issues insurmountable. Well, some Mormons and a great many libertarians beg to differ and wish you'd stop impeding the flow of progress.

As I have said, so far I've ignored the self-referential aspect to your arguments. They are that we are to assume that it is "good" to give people more and more rights because ...well, because it is "good". That the natural objections to the sort of anarchy this might inspire are supposedly mitigated with the argument that we give rights "as long as they don't hurt anyone else", is again self-referential. Illogically, any curtailment of "rights" based upon a religious appeal of harm to society, via harm to it's institutions is to be rejected.

But we are told this is logical to the point of being self-evident. That our rights are based upon our Constitution and that the same Founders formulated them as having come from God in the first place, seems to make no dent in the self-referential assumption that rights and restrictions based on my morality are good and restrictions based upon the morality of religion are not good.

I don't think a case can be made that Christians or the Founders ( whether deists or no) never believe/d that the God from whom our rights are given, has set out mandates that have no earthly benefit or intellectual justification. That precepts have been taken to an extreme, whether religious or not...say laws past laws limiting the rights of married women or the recent expansion of imminent domain law that the SC meted out, is not justificaton for labeling any advocacy of parameters set on civil society based upon a mortality explicitly predicated on religious values rather than a mortality illogically predicated upon a logical appeal to some sort of morality.

Take the example of divorce. The fact that someone would proscribe it based upon the fact that Christ spoke against it, in no way mitigates the logic that divorce is harmful to individuals and society That is why divorce laws were severaly strict in the past. Divorce was considered an act that destabilizes society for legal as well as other reasons (as you have said polygamy does) and is emotional harmful to children. While divocre was legal in set circumstances, society demanded that citizens be responsible and live up to the vow they had made, conduct themselves as adults with each other to the benefit of their children. That the inevitable possibility exists that estranged man and woman willl NOT behave as adults in no way erased the "logic" of restricting divorce and its determintial effects any more than the fact that indiscipline and foolishness exists should erase (rather than mitigate) any rights under the Constitution.

I had read your piece when you posted it to another thread and then read one more piece by you where you said that though you felt religious conservatives constituted a grave threat, you were optimistic about the future. That you were optimist was good enough for me and I left it at that. But since you reposted and seem to want a reply from me it is this. Any appeal you make as to the logic or illogic of what certain groups champion or denounce within our political system should be based upon the merits of their arguments, not simply a mere dismissal of ideas that refer religious.
Smart people have an innate respect for such things even when they think them rooted in mythology. Such "myths" arise from somewhere within the human experience and we'd do well not to reject them off-hand whether for secular or reasons based upon religious dogma.

THAT is NOT the tradition of our country and you'd well to listen to the arguments of your opponents, support what you feel is correct and reject any extremism that you feel is not. You'd do well if you appreciated a diversity of voices as well as other diversities.

I'll be laughing at you and the other chicken little fools while you walk around on dry earth with you hip waders on, waiting for the "FLOOD" in 2050. You are a flat earth fools who believes the spin and hype of the UN socialist. Go pay for your cabon credits and your UN taxes. I'll keep my money.

VOK,
I got news for you:
I'm a Democrat!
I'm a Democrat in the FDR/Truman tradition.
If you look at how they conducted WW2, the last war we won, they did barbaric things.
Fire bombings and Dropped the A-Bomb on Hiroshima. The point is that to win you must be ruthless.
I still don't comprehend why you Leftists get so touchy about Muslims but said nothing when Sudanese Muslims slaughtered 2 Million Sudanese Christians in the 80's and 90's.
If the Muslims slaughetr ezch other, who cares! They would give a rat's ass if we were killing each other.
I'm convinced the Left is Pro-Islamic because Jihad organizations are funding Leftwing groups.
You're jusy a Jihad apologist.
Call me whatever, but I belive in preserving my civilization.
Unlike you who believes in comitting suicide by stupidity.
Just go put your head back in the sand.
Your a typical Leftist Ostrich.

VOK,
"Look, you're obviously not a native speaker, so I can forgive you not seeing the satire of my post. "

The tolerance of the left. You defend Muslims that want to destroy you but assume I'm an immigrant. A typical Leftists Elitist view of Latins. I'm need your stupid racist Bi-Lingual segreagation program. So you're dealing with the wrong type of Hispanic.
Racist scum.

US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's visit to Damascus this week caused quite a stir. Before she even landed in Syria, the White House was calling her decision a "really bad idea." Pelosi's spokesman was quick to defend the visit by saying that the speaker intended to use her trip "to discuss a wide range of security issues affecting the United States and the Middle East." No one doubts that security is essential in the region. But Pelosi appears to have committed the same mistake as other recent visitors to Damascus, who decided not to raise the issue of Syria's appalling human rights record.

Pelosi was the most senior American public figure to visit Damascus since Colin Powell visited in 2003 as secretary of state, but she came on the heels of other high-profile visitors. Last weekend, three Republican congressmen, Frank Wolf, Joe Pitts and Robert Aderholt, traveled to Syria to meet with President Bashar Assad. Last month, Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief, also paid a visit. The message from these various visitors has generally been consistent: Syria needs to cooperate on Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, and Iraq.

Pelosi's visit fits the mold. At a press conference in Damascus, Pelosi told reporters that the she had expressed to Assad her concern about Syria's support for Hizbullah and Hamas, and that they discussed the "issue of fighters slipping across the Syrian border into Iraq." Pelosi also reportedly passed a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert about Israel's readiness to engage in peace talks, and she raised the issue of three Israeli soldiers abducted by Palestinian militants in Gaza and by Hizbullah in Lebanon. There is no indication, however, that she told Assad or other Syrian officials that Syria needed to improve its human rights record to truly become a positive player in the region.

The Syrian government strictly limits freedom of expression, association, and assembly. Emergency powers, imposed in 1963, remain in effect, and the government bans hundreds of political and human rights activists from traveling. The authorities treat Kurds, Syria's largest non-Arab minority, as second-class citizens subject to systematic discrimination.http://www.dailystar.com.lb

Pelosi's visit took place at a time when several Syrian political and human rights activists are facing trial for exercising their right to freedom of expression. Former prisoner of conscience Kamal al-Labwani is due back in court on April 10. He was arrested in November 2005, on his return to Syria after several months in Europe and the United States, where he met with officials to call for peaceful democratic reform inside Syria. He is charged with "encouraging foreign aggression against Syria." Prominent writer Michel Kilo and human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni have been detained since May 2006, following their signature of the Beirut-Damascus Declaration, which called for improved relations between Syria and Lebanon.

Many analysts fear that emphasizing human rights concerns will weaken the objective of getting Syria to change its regional behavior. Better not anger Damascus by asking for internal reforms, they argue. But these fears are misplaced. First, US foreign policy behavior has often addressed this "tension" by reflecting both a concern for security cooperation and respect for human rights. Pelosi herself is a staunch advocate of human rights in China at a time when the US and China need to cooperate on many critical security issues, including the rise of North Korea as a nuclear player.

Second, more democratic governance and rule of law in Syria will surely be a more positive influence in the Middle East.

Journalists and commentators will use a lot of ink debating the merits of Pelosi's visit. But one thing is clear. She missed an opportunity to send a strong message to the Syrian authorities that Washington's desire to cooperate with Syria does not mean it will turn a blind eye to Syria's human rights violations. She also missed the opportunity to send a message to Syrians and other Arabs that the US still values respect for human rights.

Nadim Houry is Syria researcher at Human Rights Watch. Radwan Ziadeh is director of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies. They wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.

When a dilettante takes on Hizbullah
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, April 05, 2007

We can thank the US speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, for having informed Syrian President Bashar Assad, from Beirut, that "the road to solving Lebanon's problems passes through Damascus." Now, of course, all we need to do is remind Pelosi that the spirit and letter of successive United Nations Security Council resolutions, as well as Saudi and Egyptian efforts in recent weeks, have been destined to ensure precisely the opposite: that Syria end its meddling in Lebanese affairs.

Pelosi embarked on a fool's errand to Damascus this week, and among the issues she said she would raise with Assad - when she wasn't on the Lady Hester Stanhope tour in the capital of imprisoned dissidents Aref Dalila, Michel Kilo, and Anwar Bunni - is "the role of Syria in supporting Hamas and Hizbullah." What the speaker doesn't seem to have realized is that if Syria is made an obligatory passage in American efforts to address the Lebanese crisis, then Hizbullah will only gain. Once Assad is re-anointed gatekeeper in Lebanon, he will have no incentive to concede anything, least of all to dilettantes like Pelosi, on an organization that would be Syria's enforcer in Beirut if it could re-impose its hegemony over its smaller neighbor.

Inasmuch as it is possible to evoke sympathy in such cases, one can sympathize with Hizbullah. In 2000, the party lost much of its reason to exist as a military force when the Israelis withdrew from Southern Lebanon. The manufacturing of the Shebaa Farms pretext, thanks to the diligent efforts of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, bought Hizbullah an extension, a handy fig leaf allowing it to keep its weapons. Last summer, however, the party's initiation of a war devastating to Lebanon, followed by its efforts to lead a coup against the majority, demolished any lingering cross-sectarian support that Hizbullah had enjoyed.

Hizbullah's weapons are no longer regarded as weapons of resistance by most Lebanese, but as weapons of sectarian discord. The party's effort to torpedo the Hariri tribunal has created a perception that it is siding with Rafik Hariri's murderers - little helped by Hizbullah secretary general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's public statements of solidarity with the Syrian regime. But perhaps most worrying for Hizbullah's leadership is its knowledge that the party cannot return to where it was before July 12, 2006, when the war with Israel began - at least without pushing the Lebanese political system perilously closer to war. For one thing is absolutely clear: Without some sort of Syrian return to Lebanon, and even then, Hizbullah has no future as simultaneously a political and military party.

For years, pundits and analysts have spoken of Hizbullah's "integration into Lebanese society." Their underlying premise was that the party somehow desired this. Optimists pointed to Hizbullah's participation in successive parliamentary elections as an example of its willingness to "assimilate." The naivete deployed was remarkable. It rarely occurred to the experts that Hizbullah did not start as, nor truly is, a social services organization. It is an Iranian-financed military and security enterprise overseeing a vast and competent patronage system designed to win Shiite backing, allowing Hizbullah to retain its weapons. It never occurred to the experts that Hizbullah's objective in participating in the political system was not to jettison its military identity, but rather to safeguard it within the confines of Lebanese institutions it could thereafter influence. And it never occurred to the experts that Hizbullah was not interested in integration at all, at least on terms that would require surrendering its autonomy, even if it readily exploited its stake in the state as an additional means of patronage, much like other Lebanese political actors.http://www.dailystar.com.lb

These conditions no longer apply in Lebanon. With the society divided, Hizbullah cannot impose its conditions as it once did. This, Nasrallah knows. At the same time, the party's officials are too astute not to recognize that a return of Syrian domination, while it might buy Hizbullah a new lease on life, is more likely to lead to a Sunni-Shiite war, its end result, in all probability, being the collapse of Assad's regime, which would not be able to resist sectarian discord coming from Lebanon. That leaves a third option: Hizbullah's embrace of the Lebanese system through an agreement to disarm and transform itself from a Leninist political-military party into solely a political one deferring to democratic rules.

None of these choices appeals to Hizbullah. This is why it is trying to avoid a decision by taking over effective control of the government, to better determine who will be elected president once Emile Lahoud's term ends. Hizbullah's demand for 11 ministers out of 30 must be understood in this context, as an instrument to bring the government down, or threaten to, and use this as leverage to choose a friendly president. If the party and Syria can influence the presidency, and given the fact that they already rule over Parliament through Berri, this would allow them to hold Lebanon hostage in the coming years and rebuild the political and military infrastructure that was the basis of their intimidation.

That's why both Syria and Hizbullah were especially alarmed with statements from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's entourage last week, that the UN was working on defining the Shebaa Farms border, whether Syria agreed with this or not. If the international organization sets final boundaries and persuades Israel to withdraw, Hizbullah will have even less of an excuse to hold on to its arms. More worrying for the Syrians, this would sever any remaining linkage between a resolution of Lebanon's territorial dispute with Israel and Syria's. Syria would no longer be able to link the military neutralization of the Lebanese-Syrian border area to an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights.

Perhaps Pelosi and other foreign officials will understand this simple equation one day, after again failing to persuade Assad to sell Hizbullah out. Unfortunately, foreign bigwigs come to town, their domestic calculations in hand; then they leave, and we're left picking up the pieces.

VOK,
"And you're no liberal, so I can understand that you don't really believe in multiculturalism beyond what you think is good for YOU and your family or race."

Typical Leftist Elitist view of Hispanics. We are part of The Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian Culture. In fact more so than Anglos since we can trace or bloodlines to Rome. Multiculturaliam is bunk. Hispanics come from the same culture as Americans.
You just proved your ignorance and lack of historical context.
Ignorance is bliss right?

You argue that those restrictions in our society with which you concur are based in reason and logic. But are they really?

Yes, they are really. Reason and logic with the express goal of maximizing individual freedom (there has to be some goal of logic.) When I talked about the demand side of child pornography, I'm not referring to the idea that it is impermissible to think because then you may act, but that it is impermissible to possess because that creates the demand that means someone must produce. And that crime is considered much less than the actual producer. Same as drugs. It is not "temptation" that I think is the logical foundation of these laws.

>>>>They are that we are to assume that it is "good" to give people more and more rights because ...well, because it is "good".

I must have miswritten something if that's what you gleaned from it. We don't just give more and more rights. We try to determine what mix of rights will lead to maximum individual freedom. We can't just take of all the restraints, because freedoms overlap. They have to be adjudged somehow. And the American way to do this is with the idea of maximizing individual freedom with logical ballance. That is not what people who want to mix church and state aim at. They won't even claim such a thing. They want to maximize the acceptibility of the society to god's laws as they have been given by divine ordinance. They argue in a fundamentally dishonest way, (cf. the bogus "civil" language they use in the gay marriage debate).

"Any appeal you make as to the logic or illogic of what certain groups champion or denounce within our political system should be based upon the merits of their arguments, not simply a mere dismissal of ideas that refer religious."

I'll agree there. That is why I specifically said that no one even attempts to show the social "logic" of banning gay marriage. If they did, I'd address it. So let's add the addendum on the other side. No one should denouce what some groups champion merely on religious grounds. Especially if that involves claims that on the face of it would seem to advance human freedom without hurting anyone. To do so is, I think, pretty fundamentally un-American. Well, I'll leave it there.

I'll be laughing at you and the other chicken little fools while you walk around on dry earth with you hip waders on, waiting for the "FLOOD" in 2050. You are a flat earth fools who believes the spin and hype of the UN socialist. Go pay for your cabon credits and your UN taxes. I'll keep my money.
Posted by: The Factor at April 6, 2007 6:18 PM

This moron thinks he knows more than the best scientists in the world. Plus he also must be blind to all of the signs of globalwarming happening around the globe.
How do people get this arrogantly stupid?

This moron thinks he knows more than the best scientists in the world. Plus he also must be blind to all of the signs of globalwarming happening around the globe.
How do people get this arrogantly stupid?

Posted by: at April 7, 2007 5:53 PM
Ice feezes then it melts then it freezes then it melts. You need a scientist to tell you this? Wow.

Posted by: at April 7, 2007 5:53 PM
Ice feezes then it melts then it freezes then it melts. You need a scientist to tell you this? Wow.
Posted by: royalking at April 7, 2007 8:53 PM

It's apparent that what you know about global warming can be put on the head of a pin.
Educate yourself before you make a fool of yourself...again !
It's must be hard for you to watch( and ignore) all the news of just how global warming is affecting our planet...or maybe that's why you don't know...just look at your news sources: Fox, Savage, Beck.
Understandable now.

This is why I don't "debate" on the global warming issue.it gives the impression that there still is a debate on this issue.
After all of the exposure that Bush has been stifling and rearranging reports on global warming, the oil companies paying people to QUESTION the validity of GW etc...and to still TAKE that side...it's really really pathetic and counterproductive to the health and welfare of our planet.

It's apparent that what you know about global warming can be put on the head of a pin.
Educate yourself before you make a fool of yourself...again !
It's must be hard for you to watch( and ignore) all the news of just how global warming is affecting our planet...or maybe that's why you don't know...just look at your news sources: Fox, Savage, Beck.
Understandable now.

Posted by: at April 8, 2007 10:59 AM
So, you are saying I am wrong about ice? Who's a fool and a pinhead? There have been 7 ice ages, none caused by man. Unless the cavemen were driving hummers and operating coal mines.........

Posted by: at April 8, 2007 10:59 AM
So, you are saying I am wrong about ice? Who's a fool and a pinhead? There have been 7 ice ages, none caused by man. Unless the cavemen were driving hummers and operating coal mines.........
Posted by: royalking at April 8, 2007 11:46 AM

Again...poor confused Royala--hole.
What I'm saying( I already did) is that you don't know squat about global warming, and the facts prove it.
Hint: with climate change some parts of the earth will have increased droughts, others ice melting, floods etc.
Your ice age comment has nothing to do with current conditions.
The Inuit have been around for thousands of years and their way is life is changing irrevocably b/c of the US's excessive amount of man made fuels carrying upwind from the US to the Arctic.
They're actually suing the US over it ( and I hope they win)
For you to think that our excessive release of Co2 into the atmosphere would have NO EFFECT on our climate is folly or just plain adherence to a failed right wing philosophy.

Why is the right wing so against science? Is it b/c your president is ?
Ever think why Bush prevented, changed and obstructed scientific data on global warming ?
Do you ever think at all ?

It's one thing believing in a "wrong " idea. But when facts prove otherwise and you STILL hold on to your erroneous belief, what does that say about you and your willingness to learn?
It's quite obvious, isn't it ?

It's one thing believing in a "wrong " idea. But when facts prove otherwise and you STILL hold on to your erroneous belief, what does that say about you and your willingness to learn?
It's quite obvious, isn't it ?

Posted by: at April 8, 2007 12:22 PM
There are thousands and thousands of scientists that would beg to differ with you. Don't take my word for it. Global warming is nothing but a left wing scare tactic/scam. Can you explain why the S. Pole has more ice building?

Posted by: at April 8, 2007 12:22 PM
There are thousands and thousands of scientists that would beg to differ with you. Don't take my word for it. Global warming is nothing but a left wing scare tactic/scam. Can you explain why the S. Pole has more ice building?
Posted by: royalking at April 8, 2007 2:03 PM

It's called Antarctica !!!
Last week 60 minutes had a correspondent that went to Antactica with a number of climate scientists to SHOW on camera how the glaciers are melting.How ice sheets that have been frozen for thousands of years are coming undone from higher temps.

Royalking thinks we're all as stupid as he.
No Jeff...there are not "thousands of scientists" denying global warming.
Anyone can post on the web but when they have international conferences on the topic, your so called scientists are no where to be found. Actually very few come out in public and speak your nonsense.
Ever wonder why?
Of course not.

The impacts of warming temperatures in Antarctica are likely to occur first in the northern sections of the continent, where summer temperatures approach the melting point of water, 32-F (0-C). Some ice shelves in the northernmost part of Antarctica—the Antarctic Peninsula—have been collapsing in recent years, consistent with the rapid warming trend there since 1945. Scientists are also concerned about future changes in the large West Antarctic ice sheet on the main continent because its collapse could raise sea level by as much as 19 feet (5.8 meters).

Antarctic Peninsula -- Warming 5 times global average. Since 1945, the Antarctic Peninsula has experienced a warming of about 4.5-F (2.5-C). The annual melt season has increased by 2 to 3 weeks in just the past 20 years.

It's called Antarctica !!!
Last week 60 minutes had a correspondent that went to Antactica with a number of climate scientists to SHOW on camera how the glaciers are melting.How ice sheets that have been frozen for thousands of years are coming undone from higher temps.

Royalking thinks we're all as stupid as he.
No Jeff...there are not "thousands of scientists" denying global warming.
Anyone can post on the web but when they have international conferences on the topic, your so called scientists are no where to be found. Actually very few come out in public and speak your nonsense.
Ever wonder why?
Of course not.

Posted by: Why Do You Care What My Name is at April 8, 2007 8:48 PM
You might not believe this, but, I had ice on my winsheild and all over the ground this morning and guess what, it's all gone! Tomorrow morning, it will probably be there again. Must be that damned global warming.

Antarctic Peninsula -- Warming 5 times global average. Since 1945, the Antarctic Peninsula has experienced a warming of about 4.5-F (2.5-C). The annual melt season has increased by 2 to 3 weeks in just the past 20 years.

Cecelia I have reread your recent reply and it is seeming stranger to me the more I consider it. I think you are defending the idea of an individual projecting religous debate or religious strictures into civil law SO LONG AS there is also a concurrent secular reasoning behind the law that can be found and voiced by someone else.

"Take the example of divorce. The fact that someone would proscribe it based upon the fact that Christ spoke against it >, in no way mitigates the logic that divorce is harmful to individuals and society." (not sure that is true either, but onward.)

You are saying, I think, don't throw away the baby with the bathwater--the baby being reasoned ordering of free society and the bathwater being religiously dictated ordering of civil society. In this argument, you seem to me to be turning the baby-bathwater thing on it's head and saying that we can't throw away the bathwater at all, as if the baby HAD to go out with it. Not at all. We value the one, contemn the other, and always distinguish between the two.

I'm not saying you can't pass laws that also HAPPEN to coincide with various religious tenets. That would be impossible. I'm saying you can't argue for or against civil laws on religious grounds, because the United States cannot recognize and either affirm or deny religious claims. Arguing civil law on religious grounds is not to be banned of course, because such argument is in fact a form of practicing your religion. But it is un-American, in the sense that it disrespects the peculiarly secular nature of the American project. It is un-American just like burning the flag is un-American. It is a civilly protected expression of implicit antagonism to the constituted civil authority and its secular basis.

Amedinijad is trying to take advantage of this antagonism to American values just as our totalitarian communist enemies tried to take advantage of hyper-liberal antagonism during the Vietnam war. It didn't work, doesn't work, and probably won't work, and I'm not saying we should pay any real attention to his social commentary in any event--I'm not arguing we should allow qualified women in combat just to spite the theocrats in Iran. We should do it if, and because, it advances overall human liberty and civil equality.

I am saying that this coincidence of secular-religious confusion on the part of some in the United States and the state of Iran does point to a certain danger to American values. Perhaps not a new danger, perhaps not a very grave danger since it seems to already have had it's cyclical peak and is probably mercifully declining. But it is there, catestrophic events seem to fertilize it rapidly, and being in conflict with theocracies of competing religions probably exaccerbates it's lure. I think it bears recognizing as a danger, and deserves watching. That's all.

It's rather interesting to see it deemed as legal..... but ...."UnAmerican" and ....Amedinijad-like... to lobby for particular rights and strictures based upon an appeal to divine authority. From our origin, all rights were deemed to be "inalienable" and "self-evident" based upon an appeal to divine authority... (We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...)

Your point that I have made a "baby with the bathwater" analogy is true within one sense: that is that it does reference your illogical conclusion that there is something within our history that labels precepts based upon a religious reference to be wholly incompatible with any claim to logic and that any logic found within religiously based precepts, is wholly accidental.

It was never assumed by our Founders that religious principles per se were based solely upon the whims of a tyrannical infantile diety. On the contrary, parameters were set in order to restrict tyrannical and infantile men who would limit our diety endowed rights AND/OR who would go against the wishes of the majority whether for freedoms or limitations, based upon ANY appeal to ANY morality for something outside the boundaries of Constitution.

That you say that religious appeals in lobbying for particular laws while not banned....are inherently tyrannical, is because you have separated such appeals from reason in a way that our history has not.

You have asked for a commonsensical defense for proscribing gay marriage. Judging on past reactions I'm fairly sure that upon giving you one, as I did when I mentioned the legal issue objections to such a change in marriage laws, you're going to argue that "this isn't why Christians don't like it". As if such legal objections have no involvement with the things having to do with the nature of families that the religious do reference.

I've already argued that religion....our myths......if your prefer...whether religiously oriented or not....are not to be waved away lightly as if they cannot contain a wealth of understanding based ....if not in a God who knows his creation....then a wealth of understanding from men based upon the experiences of men. Society has always deemed what is best for society upon this understanding.

Society is aware that the percentage of people who are strictly attracted to those of their sex is quite small in comparision to the rest of the population. The majority of people who engage in same sex activities are also attracted to members of the opposite sex.

Add the context that society has already deemed it ideal that children are born within a contractural or covenant relationship and that they have the influence of both their male and female biological parents.

It is in the interest of society that such an arrangement (the traditonal family) be encouraged, therefore since most people who are attracted to the same sex are also attracted to the opposite sex, they will fall into the ideal situation if no alternative (legal marriage) is deemed lawful or socially acceptable.

That reasoning incorporates how society has traditionally deemed those things that are best for itself based upon what it has held to be sound principles incorporating the wisdom of "Natural Law and the wisdom of Nature's God".

Lobby against such tradition all you wish. That is certainly within the tradition of our American history. Your relgious opponents operate within that same history as well, and have no less a historical, moral, or rational standing there, as do you.

>>>>>>from our origin, all rights were deemed to be "inalienable" and "self-evident" based upon an appeal to divine authority...

Well, that seems wrong. Something that is "self-evident" is not based on an appeal to anything. That is why it is "self-evident," not "made evident by god," the basis of religious doctrine. What they are saying is "self evident" is that the "creator" (which can be understood as anything from a human-like agent to the way dust swirls around and is discovered by reason) establishes equality and freedom. It is absolutely no different from saying "equality and freedom are good, and this is a rational given." In it's historical context, it amounts to saying "equality and freedom are good, whatever your particular religion says or makes you do to the contrary." "Deism" was pretty much considered a respectable shorthand for humanitarian atheism or antagonism to organized religion in 1776, just like unitarianism is so understood today. "Nature and nature's god" is one of their memorable coinages, which of course means nothing but "nature." No one who studies the period will consider that the founders on the whole thought religious influence in civil affairs was more a benefit than a danger. That is simple revisionism based on opportunistic cherry-picking of 18th century sentences. Compared with contemporary sources of the time, the DOI and Constitution are almost shockingly free of religious reference. "Nature and nature's god" is a formulation that appeals to human reason to determine what is natural and what is right. It is "god as reason" or "reason as god." This is a deliberate rejection of the English royal system which was a qualified overt theocracy.

>>>parameters were set in order to restrict tyrannical and infantile men who would limit our diety endowed rights>>>

Creator, not diety. And these rights are available to reason and not given in any sacred text...but these are quibbles, so onward...

>>>AND/OR who would go against the wishes of the majority whether for freedoms or limitations, based upon ANY appeal to ANY morality>>>

Sweet Jesus, no! Most of the structure of our system is to temper and curb the majority, to prevent any solid majority from forming on any basis. This is because a majority will try to deny the rights of the minorities, make it's own religion legally dominant, etc.. Come on now. The single tyrant is almost an afterthought, compared to the evil of majority faction. Federalist Papers! They even teach them at Bob Jones.

Setting that aside and moving on There are plenty of things that are "within the tradition of our American history," including agitation for communism and wealth redistribution and a host of lesser and greater evils. So I have no argument with your statement that agitation for a religious basis to laws is "traditional." Nonetheless, that doesn't preclude such things from being un-American in the fundamental sense. And they are. That's all I am claiming. Amedinijad is trying to access and ally with a certain un-American tradition within America.

As for the rest, I don't know what a "historical standing" means (it happened before so it is right?). I won't argue "moral standing" since that is too nebulous and changeable, can almost be understood from it's root to be simply majoritarian, and can support or deny anything. But to say religious arguments or people arguing religiously have an equivalent "rational standing" seems off to me. If religion and faith have any meaning at all, then surely this is wrong. And if the American founding has any meaning distinct from other nations, then it is surely the regime that intends reason rather than faith as the ultimate arbiter, the regime that believes in looking to the process rather than the outcome, becomming rather than being.

All of this is simply disagreement over our understanding of what is distinctly "American," a nebulous enough topic to bring in a whole host of opinions. I would simply say that your understanding of what is American makes it a much less audacious and much less distinct thing than mine does. I imagine you have a pretty low opinion of American exceptionalism as well.

On the more concrete point, as to why it may rationally be... good?...rational?...socially repsonsible?... to deny gays legal marriage status while granting it to straights, we can have a more concrete exchange. I take it here that you are saying that banning legal status for gay couples will create and environment whereby less people couple-up with the same sex and more couple-up with the opposite sex. And this is to be favored by the state because these are the socially ideal couplings.

First, I invite you to forward that argument-- and your statement that most gay people are also attracted to the opposite sex-- to any of your gay friends and listen to the howls of shocked laughter. But that is no argument.

Second, I invite you to apply the same reasoning to heterosexuals and restrict their right to divorce so the "ideal situation" of two people that don't want to be together for whatever reason, be it continual beatings, verbal abuse, whatever.. can cooperate to raise children together in their ideal environment. But that is no argument. And you may favor that or think it is "rationally American."

You are saying that if gay people cannot legally marry other gay people, they will marry straight people and become straight themselves and raise children in an ideal situation. If that sounds "rational" to you based on the evidence and experience available to you, then what can I say? You have to maintain that homosexuality and heterosexuality are personal choices (which indeed many of those opposing gay rights do maintain), and that the one is the healthy choice and the other sick or unnatural. If that's what you think, then I guess I should omit the reference to your gay friends, because I don't think you would have any, or at least couldn't talk about these things with them. I think I see a circularity here.

Certainly gay people have married straights in the past, and raised children, in response to social pressure. I invite you to ask them, their spouses, and their children whether they characterize this as "the ideal" or "a damaging fraud." The closet is a good thing. Is that what you, speaking for society, are saying? I guess the Haggerts and Foley's would probably agree with you, at least now that they are "cured" and can go back there.

Many if not most societies have agreed with this idea of gayness as bad, antisocial, choice, and have established penalties from diminished civil rights to stoning, hanging, or flaying. So there again your (or society's) view here is strengthened by the earlier view that tradition and myth hold great experiential wisdom. A respectable position, a conservative position, but not a particularly American one in my view, as I have been saying all along. If you had to pick one, would you say it is a more American or Iranian view? Not to be flippant about it, but what basic problem do you have with Amedinijad again? Doesn't hanging gay adolescents make it even more likely that other gays will get the message and create more ideal situations?

Apparently 'tradition' and 'traditional' can mean anything to anyone as long as it took place in the past. How 'far back' you go in search of your 'traditions' depends on the ideological prism you are looking through.

A lot of conservatives would like to go all the way back to the ancient 50's. To them, that's 'traditional.' You know, back when the violence, perversion, crime, bigotry, child abuse and intolerance wasn't spoken of very often, and therefore didn't seem very real.

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